This invention relates generally to medication-dispensing apparatus, and more particularly concerns an automatic medication dispensing apparatus which includes a magazine member for medication-containing packages, the packages typically being uniform in size.
In automatic medication dispensing systems in general, reliability and speed are primary concerns. Many systems are either too slow, particularly where a large number of medications are needed for a particular patient, or do not provide consistent, reliable results (reliable ejection of a desired medication) at high speed, which is important for automatic operation.
Many of the current medication dispensing systems are complex and/or sophisticated structurally and as such are expensive to manufacture and maintain, as well as being susceptible to failure. The expense of a complete system is a primary concern where a large number of individual medication dispensing devices are necessary to implement a particular medication-dispensing system. Such a system desirably has the capability of dispensing a large number of different medications to a single collection point, such as the system shown and described in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/085,968, owned by the assignee of the present invention. In that system, however, the individual dispensing devices result in the overall system becoming relatively expensive, complex, and somewhat cumbersome to operate and maintain.
Hence, it is desirable that a medication-dispensing device used in medication dispensing systems be not only reliable and fast, but also relatively inexpensive to manufacture and maintain.
Still further, in large, complex dispensing systems involving many medications, it is often important that the individual medication-dispensing devices have a relatively small footprint, so that a large number of such devices can be arranged closely together within a given space.
Accordingly, the present invention is a dispensing mechanism for medication packages, comprising: a housing assembly which is arranged to store medical element-containing packages, wherein the packages move downwardly within the housing when they are unclamped; a clamping assembly for maintaining the packages in place within the housing assembly, except for a lowermost package during a selected time when the lowermost package is being ejected from the housing assembly, the clamping assembly including a clamping member having two positions, wherein in one position said packages are clamped except for the lowermost package and in the other position the packages are released, permitting the packages to move downwardly within the housing assembly; an eject member which moves between a first, rest position and a second, eject position, wherein the eject member moves the lowermost package out of the housing assembly as the eject member moves from its first to its second position; and an actuator member for moving the eject member between its first and second positions, wherein the clamping member is configured and arranged such that when the eject member is in its first position, the clamping member clamps those packages in the housing above the lowermost package, preventing them from moving downwardly in the housing while permitting the lowermost package to be ejected from the housing by the eject member.